Disney's Strange World

The main character will be biracial, thus making it the 3rd Disney movie in a row to have a minority as a lead (4th if you count how they clumsily retconned Anna and Elsa as biracial in Frozen II). It's pretty fantastic how Disney has went from being accused of glorifying European-centric stories and the complications that arouse from that to making an effort to diversify their slate.

Edited by HBarnill on Dec 9th 2021 at 11:40:48 AM

That's all very well and good, but it shouldn't be the movie's only selling point.

No one here is saying that so don't know why you jumped to that conclusion...

Changed the thread title to Strange World since that’s the official title.

Mostly because of how I felt about Encanto.

Contrary to a lot of critics, I found it to be a rather slow, unexciting movie, almost lethargic in places. It had a lot of the same issues I had with Raya and the Last Dragon (another movie I thought was kind of boring). I felt like the studio was using the movie's inclusiveness as a pre-emptive shield against any legitimate criticism regarding its plot, world-building and character development.

That's not to say I'm opposed to Disney's practice of making its movies more diverse— quite the opposite. In fact, my real concern is that Disney basically operates on autopilot when it's making movies about non-white characters. That concept art looks like it deserves a much better movie than Disney will probably make.

Edited by ElSquibbonator on Dec 9th 2021 at 4:15:42 AM

I want this movie to give us a straight main antagonistic villain. We had enough No Antagonist villains for four films in order to feel fake deep and the conflict as a result feels it's stretching the story.

That's another concern of mine. Maybe I'm just jaded with the way Disney does things now, but I have this sinking feeling that the story we want Strange World to have isn't the one we'll get.

I think encanto could have a Gaston like villain who is liked by the village is the biggest hater of Bruno and when things gets heavy he begins to scapegoat mirabel as well and wants to turn the village on her. And maybe decides the solution is to kill Bruno which makes the family finally put their foot down. And even toy with the idea of killing mirabel as well.

Teaser

I’m not the only one getting Atlantis: The Lost Empire vibes from this trailer, right?

Trust me, anyone who's getting Atlantis or Treasure Planet vibes from this movie ain't alone lmao. They were the first things that came to mind when I saw the plot synopsis!

This looks pretty good honestly. The effects look fantastic, the creature designs are neat, it looks like it's gonna be super action packed. Plus it's nice to see that Disney is tackling sci-fi again in general, since only Lilo and Stitch out of the four that they made (Atlantis, Treasure Planet and Meet the Robinsons) in the 2000's really took off, and Big Hero 6 leans more to the stereotypical superhero genre than the more classic sci-fi stuff that's going on here.

Edited by Shoobedobah on Jun 6th 2022 at 12:01:14 PM

Legitimately never heard of this until the trailer appeared in my Youtube feed this morning. Looks cute, and I've been on a retro-sci-fi kick lately, too!

My feelings for this movie could probably best be described as "very cautiously optimistic." When I saw the first teaser for Raya and the Last Dragon, I was really excited, because it looked like a movie that was decidedly outside Disney's wheelhouse. Having watched the actual movie, of course, I now know that wasn't the case.

I want to look forward to Strange World, since there's so much stuff in that teaser I like— the creature designs, the gorgeous animation, the way the characters look— but in the back of my mind I feel like the end result is going to be a lot more generic and boilerplate than what the teaser is promising. But maybe not.

This is Disney, I am pretty sure they won't derive too far from their formula. The setting is unique, but the plot beats and themes will ring familiar.

It's not going to be a musical, right? I can't imagine the characters bursting into songs in this setting.

The creature designs bring Expedition (or rather its film adaptation, Alien Planet) to mind.

This is a problem I've had with a lot of recent Disney Animation movies, and to a lesser extent some Pixar movies as well. They have beautifully, wildly imaginative settings, and they squander them with bog-standard plots. Raya and the Last Dragon (which, somewhat ominously, is by the same director as this movie) is by far the worst offender, but Zootopia, Moana, The Good Dinosaur, Onward, and even Encanto have this issue too.

Not all of them have this on the same level, of course, but if you've watched Disney for as long as I have it's definitely noticeable. It feels like Disney has a few "stock" movie plots it keeps shuffling and re-dealing, and it relies on visually spectacular settings to keep them looking new.

Edited by ElSquibbonator on Jun 6th 2022 at 8:03:37 AM

Hey, you leave Zootopia and Moana out of this. They were really good movies.

I'm not saying any of those movies, except maybe Raya and the Last Dragon, were bad. But they do all come from the same place, which is Disney's regrettable tendency to give their movies exotic, bizarre-looking settings— the novelty of which often gets played up in early teasers and trailers— only for the actual plots of said movies to be more "conventional".

I've yet to see a Disney Animated Canon movie (at least in the past decade) that completely follows through with making its story as unusual and imaginative as its setting. The ones that come closest are, as you said, Zootopia and Moana. Pixar, for whatever reason, seems to do a better job of making its stories as interesting as its settings, with things like Inside Out, Coco, Soul, and possibly the upcoming Elemental.

Edited by ElSquibbonator on Jun 7th 2022 at 12:25:31 PM

Well, they say there are only seven basic plots. Though there seems to be disagreement on what those are...

Only seven? It's gotta be more than that.

I doubt it's true, but it's what they say. One example: The Seven Basic Plots

So Disney’s going full blown Two-Fisted Tales? Cool, that’s one thing I’d never thought they’d do.

It's not just a matter of plot. It's also in how they approach their plots, and how they approach their characters. One of the interesting things about Zootopia, for instance, was that it gave us a story and characters that were a bit different from what we've seen in most Disney movies before. Disney's characters are often very similar to each other, and their stories frequently hit the same character beats. Strange World looks very interesting, but I'm leery of it being another movie about the importance of family or some such.

The location they go to really reminds me of Socotra (an Island that has a lot of alien looking plants)

Also between this and lightyear, it's looking like we are going to have a lot more science-fiction from Disney which is kind of cool, although I hope they don't conflict with each other.

"I'm not an explorer I'm a farmer"

Hmmmm.

I can already see the "Believe in yourself" stock lesson

Exactly. The movie I want Strange World to be and the movie it's going to be probably aren't the same thing. Which is a damn shame, because it easily has the best-looking setting of Disney Animation movie since Zootopia.

They've done it a lot more than you might think. You had The Rocketeer, Talespin, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, DuckTales (mostly the original, but the reboot had some aspects of it too), and arguably even Up. And of course, they do own Indiana Jones now.

Edited by ElSquibbonator on Jun 6th 2022 at 8:08:49 AM